Tomorrow is the day of the draw for the EDO Decommissioners‘ fundraising raffle!
The draw takes place at Kebele in Eastville at (I think) 7pm, with prizes including reconditioned bicycles, t-shirts, a veg box, plants, wine and books.
Tickets cost just £1 for a strip of 5 – that’s FIVE CHANCES TO WIN for a mere quid! (Or you can even buy a single ticket for 20p…)
If you haven’t got any but would like some, I still have a few left, just contact me before lunchtime tomorrow to let me know how many you want. I’ll accept pledges if it’s not possible to take your money before the draw, and scan your tickets so you know what numbers are yours.
The minority LibDem leadership in Bristol City Council has been converted into a LibDem majority after yesterday’s local elections. The Green’s targeting of Ashley ward wasn’t enough to unseat sitting LibDem Dr Jolly Jon Rogers, despite Shirley Not’s CoconutGate race shenanigans threatening to complicate matters.
I’ve been busy on other matters lately, so here’s some handy links to other Bristol bloggers on the elections:
Conversations about BCC elections with local neighbours:
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Conversations about BCC elections with others in Bristol:
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This is all down my ends of Ashley ward. Seeing as we were supposed to be some kind of battleground, I was surprised there was no doorstep business from Greens or LibDems, and only one leaflet from either! The nearest to any kind of canvassing was a Green who buzzed my flat asking to be let in to the block on a Sunday to deliver leaflets, but they didn’t knock on the door to talk or anything.
The Guardian want to interview people who were actually assaulted (not just threatened) by the police. You’ll need to use your real name.
Via What I Saw (blog devoted to eyewitness accounts from G20 protests) [Edit: It seems they have had a large response to this, and so don't need any more! See comments for more on this.]
PS The pic comes from a demonstration outside Bristol Magistrates’ Court this morning in support of Paul Saville, the ‘Bristol Chalkist‘ who was arrested and charged with criminal damage for writing on the pavement in chalk. The Crown Prosecution Service finally saw sense and dropped the charges.
To the bottom of the screen for the most part is a large bloc of police officers in full blue boilersuit & visored helmet riot duty get up. In addition they mostly seem to be armed with see-through riot shields:
As we can see from the pictures above, this ‘blue bloc’ seems mostly to be a mix of officers wearing helmets marked either “MP TW” or “MP U55″. This would appear to indicate that they are Metropolitan Police divisional officers from the Twickenham sector and members of serial 5 of Territorial Support Group 5.
Towards the top of the screen are mostly officers wearing high visibility jackets over their uniforms, with black riot shields instead of transparent ones:
As the pictures show, their helmets are marked with the “KB” prefix. In addition, some officers wear tabards which also bear the “KB” prefix. This indicates that they are divisional officers from the Barking sector of Barking & Dagenham policing borough. [ETA: After initially identifying 'KB' as Barking sector of Barking & Dagenham borough, I subsequently lost the reference for this, so queried the identification. However, I have since found a list of 'Met Police Subdivision' identifying codes on the National Archive website, which would seem to be a fairly authoritative source.]
It is also interesting to see in amongst the Barking contingent (from whence, judging by the video footage, some of the most savage baton beatings were given out) a police cameraman and minder (identified by “EG” for ‘Evidence Gathering’ on the dark blue tabard to the right of the picture below):
Whether the video footage shot by EG7 finds its way – unedited – into the public domain, or whether it gets ‘lost’, or else accidentally stored next to a really, really powerful magnet, is a question which only time will answer.
One final thing of note: the video captures what looks like a tactical conflab between senior officer on the ground before they order their troops to attack the Climate Camp:
The officer to the right of that group, wearing the red epaulettes on his shoulders, can apparently later be seen in the video to the rear of the TSG 5 contingent, flanked by three officers each wearing white epaulettes:
Could this be Inspector Giel, commander of TSG 5’s serial 5 (as identified on this TSG command structure diagram, found online here), along with his three sergeants?
So, to wrap up, per the YouTube comments by oimelnikov, there are clearly TSG 5 officers – or certainly those wearing TSG 5’s helmets – on duty at the attack on the Climate Camp. There is a police station with a seemingly large garaging capacity in Clapham at an address near to two roads with ‘Larkhall’ in their name, and a park called Larkhall. So far I have not been able to positively identify any officers bearing TSG 4 insignia, but the address in Catford does lead us to a large police vehicle compound. In addition officers bearing the identifying mark “KB” which denotes that they are based in Twickenham and Barking are clearly visible all from the same policing borough.
ETA:
Someone has forwarded me a link to a photoset on Flickr which shows the KB police contingent (the ones in the hi-vis jackets to the top of the picture) getting stuck in to the hippies. From these photos one can clearly make out some of their warrant numbers:
CJ177
CC050
CW364
CC614
(There are also a couple which are less clear – possibly CH454 and one ending in 103?)
Most of the attackers are from 5TSG and 4TSG (the call signs on their helmets are U5 and U4), based in Clapham (Larkhall Road) and Catford (Aitken Road) respectively.
Well, this intrigued me. To start with, I had a look to see if I could find possible sites for Territorial Support Group (TSG) bases at the locations mentioned. Each TSG (there are five in total) comprises five operational serials, plus support staff. Each serial splits across three vans, with nine per van. That means we’re looking for locations for TSG 4 and TSG 5 that each can garage at least 15 vans and more than a hundred coppers.
Now, there doesn’t appear to be a Larkhall Road in Clapham, though there is a Larkhall Lane and a Larkhall Rise. However, Clapham police station is on the corner of Union Grove and Smedley Street – which then leads on to Larkhall Lane and is also close to Larkhall park:
Judging by the pictures, the police station compound does seem to occupy a large footprint, with the building at the back looking like it could be vehicle workshops or some such similar.
Down in Catford, at the end of Aitken Road, is a large gated compound which operates as the SE garage of the Traffic Operational Command Unit, though other Metropolitan Police units also seem to be based there, in the main building and in adjacent offices:
So, looking at all this, oimelnikov’s comment seems to have some merit.
Channel 4 News is now claiming that Officer ‘A’ – the one who assaulted Ian Tomlinson shortly before he died – was wearing a helmet marked ‘U41′, indicating a TSG officer from serial 1 (commanded by Inspector Dyer) of TSG4, based at Aitken Road, Catford.
I originally posted up the following as a comment accompanying a link to the video on Ian Bone’s blog, but seeing as someone else has cross-posted the text elsewhere, I might as well add it here too:
There is a very clear video of the police violently wading into the hippies at the climate camp on Bishopsgate up on IndyMedia.
Whatever you or I might think of the politics of the climate camp, or indeed of fundamentalist non-violence, the video lays bare the function of the police force in all its naked, violent, powermonger-protecting glory.
And the individuals who choose to join the police, who then – day by day, situation by situation – choose to carry out orders which include, as here, acting as an anonymous, homogenous bloc of brute force, beating, bloodying, slavering over peaceniks who don’t even defend themselves despite the shields and the batons, well… I think we all know what sort of people they are. I think we all know how big and brave they are when they face anything resembling a fair fight.
£5 in, got a goodie bag and free drinks & scran, heard some nice bands & beatboxers, the LLF made fun of TwitGeeks (despite being herself a BBS addict ), and we got pleasantly toasted on £2 cocktails. A nice wedge was raised for Charity:Water, we didn’t win any of the raffle prizes, but we did make it home without incident or accidents. That is a result in my book.
NOW IS A PERFECT TIME TO SQUAT
Now is a perfect time to come together to share our collective creativity, rage, and pride in our cultural identity; to come together for ourselves and look to our future with solidarity and passion. Let’s meet and empower ourselves in our common struggle!
CRACKS ARE APPEARING…
We feel it necessary to meet at a time when those at the top are losing their grip to discuss ways we can work together to change our world from the bottom up. New spaces and opportunities are opening all around us and there is a growing potential for more widespread recognition of the need for autonomous housing action. The threat of eviction and homelessness hangs over more people every day. There are over a billion squatters in the world. Now is the time to build a stronger network of resistance.
THIS IS A CALLOUT
This is a callout for all those involved in securing and maintaining squats and autonomous spaces across the UK, and beyond, to meet and discuss issues that affect us all as a community. Following on from the hugely successful national meeting in Leeds last year, and many smaller local gatherings, that have happened throughout the year, this year’s meet up will be in the Bristol area. Please bring your positive energy, enthusiasm and thoughts to share skills and engage in open dialogue.
WE CAN CONSTRUCT A POSITIVE VISION OF THE WORLD
We hope to discuss ways of strengthening our network in defence of autonomous spaces, share success stories from last year’s day of action and formulate future plans and schemes for creative chaos! The agenda will be decided between us all on Friday evening. Please arrive early if possible to help us create the space. Any comments/ suggestions/ mad ideas please contact squatmeetup@googlemail.com
These Berliners do like their fireworks. A health & safety nightmare, etc…
The LLF said that this was pretty much the safest place to see in the New Year. Her friend still managed to get intimately attacked by a smouldering hunk of pyrotechnics, though. We discovered afterwards that we were partying on top of what had been a Gestapo torture dungeon.
ETA pic (that cursed iMac in Berlin did not like the Flash uploader one little bit…)
Two Saturdays ago, Greek cop Epaminondas Korkoneas – assisted by colleague Vassilis Saraliotis – shot and killed fifteen year old Alexis Grigoropoulos.
The insurrection in Greece continues.
(Image taken from slackbastard’s account of a Melbourne demonstration in protest at the murder of Alexis which took place a week after his death.)
The guy who shot the boy isn’t someone I know, but his nickname “Rambo” explains it all. I don’t want to know a person like this, but policeman around the world probably all know a co-worker who is (what do you call it?) irresponsible and trigger happy. All professions everywhere have bad people.
It is a tragedy, and I understand why people are mad. All the MAT are paying for him, whether he is guilty or not.
…I didn’t feel good before, but these days I feel worse. On one hand, I can understand that people are mad and want justice, but I don’t think violence is the answer. It just makes things worse.
…Regardless of what I think, I am hated and used for target practice all day long. That’s my job, to be a target. Isn’t that great?
…The government needs to stop talking and start doing something, not just with riots but with everything and fix this country. That’s the real reason for the rioting. The country is broken.
Today (Friday), the assembly of the occupied Athens Polytechnic decided to make a callout for European and global-wide actions of resistance in the memory of all assassinated youth, migrants and all those who were struggling against the lackeys of the state. Carlo Juliani; the French suburb youths; Alexandros Grigoropoulos and the countless others, all around the world. Our lives do not belong to the states and their assassins! The memory of the assassinated brothers and sisters, friends and comrades stays alive through our struggles! We do not forget our brothers and sisters, we do not forgive their murderers. Please translate and spread around this message for a common day of coordinated actions of resistance in as many places around the world as possible.
On Saturday night, the Greek police assassinated a 15 year old student.
His assassination was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
It was the continuation of a coordinated action, by state terrorism and the Golden Dawn, which aimed at university and high school students (with the private universities first), at migrants that continue to be persecuted for being born with the wrong colour, at the employees that must work to death without compensation.
The government of cover-ups with its praetors, having burnt the forests last summer, is responsible for all major cities burning now, too. It protected financial criminals, all those involved in the mobile phone interceptions scandal, those looting the employees’ insurance funds, those kidnapping migrants, those who protected the banks and the monasteries that steal from the ordinary people.
We are in Civil War: With the fascists, the bankers, the state, the media wishing to see an obedient society.
There are no excuses, yet they once again try to use conspiracy theories to calm spirits down.
The rage that had accumulated had to be expressed and should not, by any means, end.
Throughout the world we are making headlines, it was about time that people uprise everywhere.
The generation of the poor, the unemployed, the partially employed, the homeless, the migrants, the youth, is the generation that will smash every display window and will wake up the obedient citizens from their sleep of the ephemeral American dream.
DON’T WATCH THE NEWS, CONSCIOUSNESS IS BORN IN THE STREETS
WHEN THE YOUTH IS MURDERED, THE OLD PEOPLE SHOULD NOT SLEEP
GOODBYE ALEXANDROS, MAY YOUR BLOOD BE THE LAST OF AN INNOCENT TO RUN
A “statement issued by the association of employees of the suburb of Agios Dimitrios in Athens,” via On The Greek Riots
Friends call from abroad. “Is it over?” we can only laugh at that idea – What do you mean, is it over? It’s just about to start. Some comrades come back to the Athens School of Economics (our base), carrying incredible stories from the occupation of the town hall of the suburb of Agios Dimitrios in Athens. In a previous post we reported that the town hall was occupied by anarchists. Wrong: The town hall was occupied by the locals, whose statements so far easily overcome the “toughest” of anarchist speech. “This is civil war”, they write. “Alexis, we hope that your blood is the last OF AN INNOCENT to run”. We’ve got a copy of the entire statement published by the area’s employees committee, and will be translating it tomorrow. It is, quite simply, a historical document.
As for what to expect tomorrow (12.12). There is a callout for yet another mass demonstration in Athens, at noon. A “revolutionary alleycat race” is called for 21:30. Its tag: “Come contribute to the chaos!”. Most university students will be holding department assemblies to decide whether they will proceed with occupations (surely enough, most of them will do so); we expect high school students to keep rocking, as they have all these days (and if information received so far is confirmed, regarding their plans, they might have some awesome surprises for us tomorrow).
“Is this over?” How, exactly, could it be? The murderer if Alexandros shows no remorse and is about to get away with it. The pigs keep provoking. Their political leaders remain unpunished. What single argument, what single reason is there for us to return to normalcy, to forget, to retreat from the streets? None. There is no way back now.
Brendan Duddy, ‘The Link’ in Northern Ireland peace process documentary The Secret Peacemaker.
Here he stands in his back parlour, where in 1975 he brought together IRA leaders like Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Seamus Twomey with British officials (such as Michael Oatley?), looked over by a sign announcing:
Last year, the (mostly) annual St. Paul’s Carnival was put back from its usual slot in July to September, due to police pressure. In the early hours of Sunday 16th September following Carnival, a man died, having been stabbed at the Criterion pub on Lower Ashley Road. That man was Mohamoud Muse Hassan.
For the past week or so, a young woman has been on trial for his murder at Bristol Crown Court, having already admitted manslaughter. That woman is April Bright.
Today I went down to watch proceedings, for the simple reason that this happened in my neighbourhood, and that the accused is a neighbour. There’s not really much to say, except that it’s a sad case in which many lives have been touched in horrible ways.
This morning there were three witnesses. First was Ms Bright’s friend Courtney Wood, who was presented with a verbal statement he had made to police on the day of the killing, as well as a subsequent statement made this October. Mr Wood had great difficulty recalling details of the day after Carnival, of his talking with police that day, and of the October interview. He did, however, accept that Ms Bright had told him about the incident with Mr Hassan. He denied that she had told him that Mr Hassan had been sexually harassing her, though he said others had told him that. Mr Wood often answered questions “I don’t know,” or “I can’t really remember”.
The second witness was Roy Burnett. He had been at the Blue Mountain until the early hours of the Sunday morning. After leaving the club at around 2:40am, he headed down Wilder Street with a friend in a car, where he spotted Ms Bright with a man called Eldon. Mr Burnett approached Eldon, but he ran off. Mr Burnett asked Ms Bright to get him back, but according to him, she became aggressive and pulled out a large, kitchen-style knife, at which point he pushed her away by the throat, and then left the area. The defence suggested that he had punched her in the face, but Mr Burnett denied this, asking in retort, “Did she have any marks?”, and insisting he had pushed her away by the throat.
The third witness was Simon Curran. He had been at Carnival during the day with his girlfriend and her friend, and then later at the Blue Mountain. On leaving the Blue Mountain some time around 4am, the three walked down Wilder Street. Here there was an altercation with a young woman who broadly matched the description of Ms Bright, in which a large, kitchen-style knife was brandished, with which Mr Curran’s girlfriend was nicked in the face. Mr Curran had a distinctive way of talking. When asked a question, he would often preface his reply, “I believe I said in my statement…” He described the woman he came across on Wilder Street as “petite, slight.”
Also presented by the prosecution were witness statements from a friend of Ms Bright [ETA: Kasmira Conlon], who had been with her and her family for most of Carnival evening, and who had been in Tasties when two Somali men had been harrassing Ms Bright and her friends, and later at the Criterion when Mr Hassan staggered out of the pub with his neck wound. She was in the area still when the emergency services arrived, with the police taping off the scene. She saw Ms Bright there, and described her as looking “pissed off”.
One thing in particular from the day’s evidence does stick out: a statement from one police officer [ETA: PC Jeremy Cowburn] was read out. In it he detailed how he was on duty on the Sunday afternoon following Carnival, in the aftermath of Mr Hassan’s killing. He described being in a patrol car with a colleague, which had responded to a call on Brunswick Square. On leaving Brunswick Square, they drove up Upper York Street towards Stokes Croft, where he spotted Ms Bright and Mr Wood by the billboard at the junction of City Road, Stokes Croft and Upper York Street. The officer describes Ms Bright turning away from him as if to hide her face. The officer says he recognised her from having previously seen her picture. The police car turned left onto Stokes Croft, then all the way around the St. James’ Barton roundabout and up Stokes Croft again, and then turning right onto City Road, down which he could see Mr Wood walking on his own, with Ms Bright nowhere to be seen. It was here that Mr Wood is said to have told police that he had just been with Ms Bright, that she had told him about Mr Hassan’s death earlier that day, and that she had gestured with her hands in a manner which suggested a stabbing motion. Today Mr Wood could not recall such details.
Yet Upper York Street between Moon Street and City Road is one-way; only traffic either making a right turn from Stokes Croft or a left turn from City Road can turn down it. Traffic going up Upper York Street must turn left onto Moon Street, which leads to the North Street end of Stokes Croft outside the Blue Mountain and by St. James’ Barton roundabout.
The trial is still going on, so I guess I can’t really say much more about some of what went on in the court, or outside, or what happened around here when it was all going on last September. All in all it’s a sad little affair, with no winners.
The Evening Post’s reportage of the court proceedings:
Full-bladdered IRA bomber Eddie Butler (Edward MacLiam) improvises in the corner of Chez Matthews during the 1975 Siege of Balcombe Street in the rather well produced part drama/part documentary The Year London Blew Up.
Oops! Police at the Climate Camp in Kent have dropped a clanger – or more specifically a copy of their demonstrators=turrists handbook, the NETCU Policing Protest Pocket Legislation Guide (“For Police Use Only”).
NETCU? Who they? Well, the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit “forms part of the national policing response to domestic extremism”, and gives advice to individual police forces and other ‘enforcement agencies’ relating to this. There’s even a handy little biography on the inside page of Policing Protest (with even handier contact details):
NETCU provides tactical advice and guidance on policing single-issue domestic extremism. The unit also supports companies and other organisations that are the targets of domestic extremism campaigns. NETCU reports through the National Coordinator for Domestic Extremism (NCDE) to the Association of Chief Police Officers Terrorism and Allied Matters – ACPO(TAM) committee.
National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit (NETCU)
PO Box 525, Huntingdon, PE29 9AL
Tel: 01480 425091
Fax: 01480 425007
Email: mailbox@netcu.pnn.police.uk
Web: www.netcu.org.uk
Freedom of Information
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 applies to public authorities in England and Wales. Under the Act, organisations listed in Schedule 1 to the Act – either by name or by description – have to provide public access to information they hold. NETCU is not a public authority as defined by Schedule 1 and therefore there are no obligations on NETCU to disclose information under the Act. Police forces are advised not to release this guide following freedom of information requests.
Edition 2 – November 2007
It could be seen as a successor to projects such as ARNI, the Animal RIghts National Index which was subsequently rolled out to encompass a wide range of environmental and social activists.
One can also see it in the context of the ‘Green Scare‘, the post-COINTELPRO pursuit of the ELF and others in the United States.
And let us also consider NETCU’s targeting of groups it considers to be engaged in ‘tertiary terrorism’ (most notably animal rights campaigns such as SHAC).
From creating databases which log the activities of entirely lawful groups and individuals, through to the arbitrary casting of politically-motivated behaviours beyond the spheres of the lawful, unlawful or criminal into the less rationally-bound romper room labelled terrorism (with all its attendant emotional responses); that is the nature of the NETCU game.
In other words, through bureaucratic manoeuvring, artless sophistry and ideologically-motivated authoritarianism, NETCU shifts the goalposts for what passes for legal protest. Thus a terrorist is not defined by her or his actions, but by having been labelled a terrorist (by way of ‘domestic extremist’). Thus terrorism is not “the systematic use of terror, esp as a means of coercion” (Penguin Pocket English Dictionary, 1990), it is any activity undertaken by those previously defined by the new terms of reference as ‘terrorists’.
That the NETCU website is liberally sprinkled with pictures of yogurt-weaving peace marchers, clowns(!) and, erm, the Countryside Alliance should give an indication of exactly whom the organisation considers a ‘domestic extremist’ – that’s right, pretty much anyone who ever dares dissent from the Westminster-approved script.
So read the Policing Protest book and find out how you should behave in future lest you accidentally become a dangerous terrorist.
Tomorrow is the inaugural International People’s Picnic of Ashton Court! It strikes me as a jolly good idea. I’ve baked some bread and I shall ransack the cupboards for chutney and jam and cheese and the flatmate’s holiday chorizo and wend my way over for the afternoon (well, via the moggies), and hopefully meet some friends and perhaps make new ones
This past weekend saw the Jamaica Street Studios open up their doors for an open day, celebrating the living art and culture of Stokes Croft and its people. Chris Chalkley of PRSC very kindly has sent round a round robin email complete with pictures from the weekend, and lumme if in one of them it looks like not just one but both Ashley ward councillors! See what you think…
Can it be true? Has the wanderer not only returned, but actually spent time in sunny Saint Paul’s? Or are these actually agency doppelgangers, hired in for the day? Answers on the back of a council expenses claim as soon as possible, please…
Right, so I been a lazy little blogger, been away, yadda yadda yadda, but anyhow, that busy bee Chris at the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft has done my work for me by putting out another call to arms to the people of the Croft and the STP…
As you may know, Lakota – one of Bristol’s most significant nightclub venues, and a progenitor of local underground dance culture – is under serious threat of being knocked down to make way for (yes, you’ve guessed it) more yuppie flats. I wrote about the earlier stages of all this back in 2006, and sadly Clockwork has now fallen to the speculators; but we do still have the chance to execute a blocking manoeuvre on the profiteers wanting to socially cleanse our neighbourhood by sticking together and routing them on the Lakota issue. How can we do that? Well, over to Mr Chalkley:
IMPORTANT NOTICE: FINAL COUNCIL PLANNING MEETING TO DECIDE WHETHER THE LAKOTA NIGHT CLUB WILL BE DEMOLISHED
TIME AND VENUE: WEDNESDAY, 11th JUNE 2PM, at the Council House.
The Lakota building is up for demolition. A development of The Lakota and the Coroner’s Court is proposed (See attached images), which will mean the demolition of the former malthouse, now the Lakota, and the construction of 57 residential units, ground floor commercial units, to include a restaurant/cafe and an element of affordable business space.
The Lakota is a former malthouse which has its origins in the 18th Century… and falls within the Stokes Croft Conservation area, and is identified as “an unlisted building of merit.” 197 letters and e-mails have been received by the Council, of which 21 were in favour of demolition, the rest being against… most people citing the loss of the club… Be warned: this is not a valid reason as far as the planning is concerned…
We invite you to peruse the relevant documents, and there are many (See the two links at the bottom of the email)… and would ask you to attend the meeting…
Everybody has a right to speak at this meeting for up to three minutes, to put one’s point of view. In order to do this, you must contact Steve Gregory at the Council by 12 o’clock the previous day [midday, Tuesday 10th June], with details of what you are going to say… Tel. 01179224357 or email steve.gregory@bristol.gov.uk
The proposed development has some merit, but we feel that, even though the Lakota building is in poor repair, and is a simple utilitarian warehouse building, there is no valid reason for its demolition. The reason that Stokes Croft is “Known as much for its individuality, culture and diversity, as for its perceived decay” is precisely because it has managed to retain an eclectic mix of historic buildings that have managed to escape the blandification of commercial re-development. It is arguable that the reason that the Lakota night club came into existence, is that the building was not locked into one specific use… Essentially it is a large box.
With developments taking place all over the City currently, we believe that it is increasingly important to retain whatever historic fabric that remains within the City Centre, and to retain buildings that offer the possibility of many different uses. By creating more accommodation, we remove these buildings and potential space from the possibility of public/creative/commercial use. In fact, we believe that to demolish the Lakota would do the City an enormous disservice, and risk setting a precedent for further re-development throughout Stokes Croft that neither ‘preserves’ nor ‘enhances’ its status as a Conservation area.
Jamaica Street Arts Studios in the centre of Stokes Croft is an old industrial building which was similarly under threat in the early 1990’s. By working with English Heritage, the owners managed to keep the building alive, and it is now a flourishing Arts studio complex, and houses over 40 working artists in a refurbished historic building.
One thing is certain: If we demolish the Lakota, we cannot un-demolish it a few years later… So, if there is the slightest element of doubt, we must work to preserve it…
If you wish to speak, then please get in contact Steve Gregory Tel. 01179224357 email steve.gregory@bristol.gov.uk
Or… contact us [PRSC], with a view to co-ordinating our response.
————————————————————————– Lakota planning app on BCC website
Description: DEMOLITION OF LAKOTA CLUB BUILDINGS.
Address: Lakota 6 Upper York Street Bristol BS2 8QN
Council reference: 08/00155/LC
Online Reference: Not Available
Date opened: 25/Jan/2008
Status: Current
Coroner’s Court planning app on BCC website
Address: Former Coroners Court Backfields And The Lakota Club Upper York Street Stokes Croft Bristol BS2 8JW
Council reference: 07/04779/F
Online Reference: Not Available
Date opened: 01/Nov/2007
Status: Current
REFURBISHMENT AND CONVERSION OF THE FORMER CORONER’S COURT TO RESIDENTIAL USE (19 UNITS) INCLUDING DEMOLITION OF LATER ADDITIONS AND EXTERNAL ALTERATIONS. DEMOLITION OF ADJOINING LAKOTA CLUB BUILDINGS AND REPLACEMENT WITH A MIXED USE DEVELOPMENT INCLUDING Drawings can be large files. We recommend that you click on the “thumbnail” links. The quality of the image depends on the quality of the original submission.
Oh, and the pic directly above? That’s the coroner’s court standing in for Peckham Town Hall in the 1996 Only Fools And Horses Christmas special, ‘Heroes And Villains‘. Guess it’s time for our councillors to decide which they are themselves…
), and we got pleasantly toasted on £2 cocktails. A nice wedge was raised for 
